Mal Grieve

Mal Grieve is a puppeteer, animator and model maker currently based on the mainland of Orkney where they were brought up. Mal specialised in illustration at Glasgow School of Art and now works mainly in 3D with recent projects including elements of puppetry, stop frame animation and kinetic sculpture.

Taking inspiration from the small and the everyday, Mal enjoys making something special out of the mundane, telling stories and making odd contraptions to capture peoples imaginations in weird and silly ways. This love of the little things often comes across in their sculptures, the small and intricate characters, miniature sets, props and delicate objects usually requiring the viewer to get up close, explore and interact with their work.

In recent years the wildlife and natural environment of Scotland has featured heavily in Mal’s work. Following a residency working with Palaeontologists in Skye, they made a short film ‘Projections’ inspired by Skye’s Mid Jurassic fossils. This involved mixing live shadow puppetry with stop frame animation, a technique which has fed into more recent work based around Orkneys sea birds and marine life and a way of working that they intend to explore in future projects.

Explore more of Mal’s work on their website, Instagram, facebook and X.